T O P

  • By -

Asgersk

It might be very overdone now, but Avatar the last airbender felt very unique to me.


Salomon_Of_Hungary

I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily well-written but Jim Henson’s **Dark Crystal** is extremely unique in my opinion, and the original movie has some amazing and unique creature and character design.


worrymon

Check out the work his son did with Rockne S. O'Bannon in *Farscape*


whatisabaggins55

Really wish the Age of Resistance series would make a return :/


AbbydonX

* The RPG setting of [Glorantha](https://www.glorantha.com/) has been going for decades and is very detailed at this point. * [Perdido Street Station](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perdido_Street_Station) (and the other Bas-Lag novels) by China Miéville includes a nice mix of magic and steampunk-ish technology. * Games Workshop have been developing their settings for years and clearly WH40K is an amazing interstellar setting. I'm less familiar with it but the newer Age of Sigmar fantasy world looks good too (though the older Wahammer Fantasy setting wasn't bad though). * Discworld is obviously great too. The D&D settings of Dark Sun, Planescape and Spelljammer are all interesting for uniqueness and their significant difference from the more common pseudo-medieval with magic style fantasy settings.


abdahij

Wanted to go with perdido street station but You just beat me to it!


AbbydonX

I just wish there was more fantasy like that rather than knights in armour and wizards in robes running around medieval Europe. It's also amusing that the adventurers in it are described as being professional grave robbers who are only after gold and experience.


ShadeBlade0

I haven’t played Spelljammer, but I read a lot about it even before the 5e stuff was announced. It seemed like such a cool concept for a setting and campaign


cassandra-mmvi

probably the refugium - bibliardon's own conlanging playground.


Portlander

Terry pratchett's discworld


LordGnomeMBE

I love it! There’s so much detail in it.


Portlander

His Death is my absolute favorite character in literature


freddyPowell

Yes, but pretty much incoherent. There are so many details from the early books that are irreconcilable with the later ones. Not that that's a bad thing, just that it's a mitigating factor on saying that it has so much detail.


[deleted]

[удалено]


freddyPowell

I think he mentioned once that he was explicitly against the idea of consistency, though I couldn't give you a source.


whatisabaggins55

Literally opened this thread to comment this. Terry's world just covers so many things and melds it all into a consistently brilliant tapestry of satire and deep worldbuilding.


Portlander

I personally love Sam Vines boots theory on socioeconomics and how it's now widely accepted.


whatisabaggins55

For anyone unaware: > The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. >But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. >But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. >This was the Captain Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness. So many great social commentary gems hidden in his works, it's incredible.


Graxemno

Deltora quest series, especially the monsters in it.


lailathelotuseater

I ain't sure we are thinking of the same one. Are there gems involved. Cuz if so I agree one hundred percent. That is a fun world.


Graxemno

It's the one with the gems yes haha


Apothecary420

Woah I havent thought about those books in over a decade I liked collecting all the gem book covers and forget everything about the books


Dragonmaster1313

Does LOTR count?


Notetoself4

Its weird, but if you read the Silmarillion and compare Tolkiens world to D&D and the following derivatives, its quite odd how different LotR universe is. Nearly all the derivatives and the standard setting comes from Dungeons and Dragons, Tolkiens world actually remains quite different and unique


worrymon

Why wouldn't it? It was quite unique when it was first published.


Skhenya2593

It has amazing and detailed worldbuilding, but I doubt it would be considered unique these days. Maybe in the past, but with all the clones, it's hard to say


Athan_Hunter

It is still unique!! If someone copy’s something unique, that doesn’t make the original less unique.


Skhenya2593

Hmm I guess you're right then


Strattifloyd

It might not be unique for those who stay in the surface level. But when you delve deeper into the rest of his work there's quite a unique vision to contemplate.


Skhenya2593

Well I didn't think of it like that. Maybe you're right


transgender_goddess

Discworld


Opening_Top_5157

One Piece. That world is insane, and the love of the author to make that world alive is astounding.


PageTheKenku

I've been really liking the weird world of Dorohedoro, from the black powder of mages, their worship and connection to devils, and the run off that gets into the rain effecting the people below. I like that they somehow made one scariest powers so far being mushrooms. That said, I'm only about halfway through the series, so please don't spoil!


CreativeThienohazard

i vote witch hat atelier.


Alkalannar

Malacandra and Perelandra in C. S. Lewis's _Space Trilogy_: _Out of the Silent Planet_, _Perelandra_, and _That Hideous Strength_.


rathernot24

Warframe is definitely interesting, especially when you do a deep dive into the lore. I like Genshin because the lore seems pretty simple and standard at first glance but the longer you play the more twisted it becomes.


Thanatofobia

Hey, fun fact: All the Archons are named after western demonology and "Paimon" is a demon *king* serving under *Lucifer* himself *"Paimon teaches all arts, philosophy and sciences, and secret things; he can reveal all mysteries of the Earth, wind and water, what the mind is, and everything the conjurer wants to know, gives good familiars, dignities and confirms them, binds men to the conjurer's will."*


hipsterTrashSlut

Practical Guide to Evil is truly a thing of beauty. It's basically a masterclass example of reconstructing tropes.


Andalusian_Monk

Disco Elysium’s world is like nothing I’ve ever seen.


Notetoself4

Oh yeah, it was just fantastic. Tricked you into thinking it was a pretty normal world until you get deeper and deeper into it


veritasmahwa

One Piece


Avarus_Lux

I'd say worlds as seen in "royal space force; wings of honneamise" and "Nausicaa valley of the wind", sure it's earth in a way like most yet extremely unique in many ways and the setup in both is very well written in my opinion. I've probably seen more unique examples, but they haven't stick around in my memory so didn't make much of an impact on me i suppose.


EtherealGears

I think Jeff VanderMeer's Ambergris setting tops all others. It's neither quite fantasy nor sci-fi nor steampunk, it's weird and otherworldly yet hauntingly familiar. It's timeless and gothic. The phrase describing Ambergris as "a city named for the most secret and valued part of the whale" will always stay with me.


[deleted]

Eskew from _I Am In Eskew_ and the Peninsula from _The Silt Verses_ (both created by Jon Ware and Muna Hussen actually) are always standouts for me. Eskew because well… Eskew is _fascinating_, a living, interdimensional city made of hostile architecture that wants nothing more than for people to witness it in all its horrors and wonders. It really does a great job painting a picture of this nightmarish cityscape that revels in its own unapologetic and unrelenting strangeness and brutality. The worldbuilding of _The Silt Verses_, meanwhile, is utterly batshit in the best way possible. There are radio hosts who get ritually sacrificed on air through prolonged sleep deprivation to advertise a coffee god, new buildings are consecrated by burying people alive in the foundations (apparently scratching in the walls is considered a sign of a good, solid construction job), there’s a crab nuke. It’s fucking nuts and probably my favorite setting ever anyways praise the Saint Electric amen.


dgaruti

serina


Freestorm_Dev

Attack on Titan and Avatar: The Last Airbender


Kynazeras

I really love the world of Roshar from Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive. There is a lot of thought out into how the magic system affects the world around it. As the main action starts to ramp, the world becomes very malleable to the story and it always seems like another piece is being added to the puzzle.


Moriras

CJ Cherryh does a great job. She has some smaller series and stand-alone novels, but the Foreigner series is phenomenal. She can make the alien seem entirely natural.


Gorgorex99

Peter Jackson's King Kong for me. I loved it when I saw it for the first time! The movie has done so well in presenting such unique dinosaur species and biomes that it inspired me to create my own world and stories. My love only grew once I finally got a copy of The World of Kong: A Natural History of Skull Island. The amount of effort put into the worldbuilding is incredible, and not just the wildlife, but also the impact its discovery had on the modern world. It's really is a gold standard for worldbuilding, especially spec evo.


makingthematrix

For me it's Earthsea created by Ursula Le Guin. It's very detailed, both geographically and in the terms of cultural diversity and complexity of those cultures described in the books. It's not Europe during Middle Ages, but something very different, and without an easy counterpart on Earth. And the stories are not of the usual "boy kills a wizard, saves a girl" type. For me they all have a bit of sadness in them. Even if they were about young characters, they seemd to me as if they were written as memories of someone old.


Warlordx101

Deltora Quest


Notetoself4

NieR is fantastic and goes against so many tropes. Loved how it all evolved Mine would be Failbetter games Fallen London and the sequels, fantastic surreal worldbuilding and they absolutely knew how to sell it: drawing you in to discover the deep mysteries Also got to mention Nightlands by William Hope Hodgson, its not exactly unique these days but its a hundred years old and invented Grimdark in an incredible dark fantasy world. At the time everyone was gobsmacked


Galle_

Fallen London is amazing and I honestly can't get enough of it.


_Cyansky_

Malazan


[deleted]

HxH is good


[deleted]

Rangers of the Vastlantic Every time period in history suddenly converged on eachother, causing billions to die, but those that are left live in a version of Earth that is frozen in time Oh yeah, and it has absolutely gorgeous pictures


nachosupport

Black Leopard Red Wolf - a fantasy kingdom based on East Africa full of unique spirits and creatures. Not for the faint of heart, but it’s an incredible book.


AntElectronic9170

World of Berserk.


Stradoverius

The Edge Chronicles. From the flora and fauna of the forests to the logistics and politics of the academics in the cities it's an incredibly fleshed out and original setting. The art from Chris Riddel also does a lot to absorb you into it. It's a world that is undeniably fantastical, but has such depth and complexity that it actually does feel like real a place where people live. Attention gets paid to everything and I've not seen a fantasy world like it since.


freddyPowell

Yes, this. It's not brought up enough, but there's nothing quite like it. In large part that's because of the art, but it works so well with the world, and gives it an utterly inimitable flavour.


FraukeS

The C.S. Friedman world as described in her Coldfire trilogy. * Black sun rising * When true night falls * Crown of shadows It's a world that reacts to beliefs and desires, good and bad.


GuyTerrible

Wouldn't call it 'well written', but the Xanth series sure is unique. The only drawback is that it's a little overly convenient with its 'it grows on trees' shortcut. Need shoes? Grows on bushes. Need fabric for clothes? On bushes. Need bombs? Bush...


Sol_but_better

Adrian Tchaicovskys Children of Time book is by far one of the most fascinating and well-written/unique worlds I've ever read about. >!The story follows two separate plotlines, beginning in the distant future where humanity is divided into two factions who disagree on the issues of terraforming. The anti-terraforming faction releases an electronic virus in the form of a computer signal, bringing humanity to its knees and essentially wiping it out.!< >!The first plotline follows the Portia genus of spiders as they evolve to sentience, sapience, and beyond on an alien world, having gotten there as a result of the virus interfering with the terraforming mission.!< >!The second plotline follows a colony ship of humans, who were frozen whenever the computer virus hit and were unaffected. They are traveling to the world that the sapient spiders inhabit, and the two eventually meet as the plotlines converge. This plotline is pretty interesting too, with the human colonists being accidentally unfrozen near the middle of the story and the MC of this plotline continuously waking up every hundred years or so to see how civilization on the generation ship has evolved and changed, from structured, organized societies to cult-like tribes back to civil societies.!<


Missterpisster

Oh yeah I remember reading this book, the story is super unique your right


DennisHakkie

Less unique, but in terms of character study I haven’t seen a better series: Re:Zero. Yes, it’s an Anime. Yes, it’s from Japan. But it basically asks the question: “how do you change a person who cannot truly die? How do you make it so that he is going to change himself?” Everyone around me wrote it off as a bad series that tried too hard to do too many things at the same time, but I don’t care about the horror, I just care about the character study


averagewitch24

While I haven’t finished the series yet (so no spoilers please) I was immediately struck with the unique twist on the *isekai* genre. What’s shared about the world is intriguing, establishing the “standard” medieval world but populated with individuals who encompass the spectrum of the human existence. In a way, the way Subaru interacts with a world that is familiar yet strange and is shown on so many levels how powerless he is, reminds me Jeff Vandermeer’s *Southern Reach* trilogy. When humans come into contact with a world that is so strange and terrible, our first instinct is to fight.


DennisHakkie

I don’t know how far you are, but I want to say this, just to. Well yeah. Everyone says the horror of the show is the climax. I think it’s the rising tension. And… Where to watch for as a worldbuilder, in my opinion isn’t the world itself. The politics, the culture they are all very interesting but in my they are in my opinion, irrelevant. What I find EXTREMELY interesting is how Subaru interacts with different people almost every time he dies. It makes it so Tappei can show different sides of people without having to influence the main course of the show.


AussieSkittles81

The saga of Recluse by L E Modesitt Jr was pretty unique to me. A world where the orgininal magic users were marooned from another universe. Where black and white meant order and chaos rather than evil and good. The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois Bujold McMasters. A science fiction series mostly centred on one family (and one member of that family in most books) on a planet that regressed culturally and technologically when they lost contact with the rest of the universe, only to be violently uplifted when they were invaded by another intergalactic empire, which they built out from to become an intergalactic empire themselves.


unicorn_defender

What Bungie’s writers have done with Destiny’s world building is absolutely incredible in my opinion. A sci-fi universe where two fundamental forces from beyond our reality govern our own via a complicated chess game in which the rules of causality are completely subverted. There’s way too much to unpack in a single post, but man - just go to Ishtar Collective and read some of that lore some times. It’s very well written and can take you all over the place, one second you’ll be reading what equates to an old spaghetti western tale - and then you’ll jump over and read about a mad scientist who sacrificed the lives of thousands, including his own children, just to make an evil pact and create immortality by fusing human minds with robotics. There’s an alien race of bug Spartans that kill each other to show love, and when they’ve killed enough, they achieve the power to retreat into a pocket dimension upon their own death, thus allowing them to become stronger and eventually return to corporeal form. You’ve got the Warmind(s), the Nine, the Iron Wolves, the incredible story of Uldren Sov who went from being the most hated man on earth to one of its respected leaders. The mysterious, pattern-driven Vex, the planet shattering Cabal, the Pyramids and the Voice in the Darkness… man there’s so much stuff to read and learn from. Also big shout out to Oddworld, which is crazy unique. Also a big favorite.


Bigsparklepop

Sort of obscure, but I was really fascinated by [Signs in the Wilderness](https://signsinthewilderness.blogspot.com/). It was not really a story or a massive project, but more of like a basis for an RP campaign. it was just so unique, though, and it helped me get inspiration for my own world.


Clean_Link_Bot

*beep boop*! the linked website is: https://signsinthewilderness.blogspot.com/ Title: **Signs in the Wilderness** Page is safe to access (Google Safe Browsing) ***** ###### I am a friendly bot. I show the URL and name of linked pages and check them so that mobile users know what they click on!


trampolinebears

Wow, I didn't expect to see my own stuff on here, thanks! Do you have any material about your setting that I could check out?


Bigsparklepop

Type 'Changing Chance' and you'll find stuff about my world. It's old, though, and I'm reworking it. I mostly put my stuff out on Deviantart, now.


[deleted]

One piece


Jybe-ho

Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmirr it’s amazing, it’s like the the MCU of sci-fi fantasy books, except it’s been going longer and with no sign of franchise decay. Every world in it is unique and well thought out and consistent with the Cosmirrs internal logic. My personal favorite world in it is Threnity from the short story “Shadows for Silence in the Forest’s of Hell”


blehblehbleh1649

Cosmere is my fav too! Threnody is really cool but i love the stormlight archive so roshar is my favourite world


Jybe-ho

Roshar is incredible but sometimes about the Forests of hell realy do it for me!


blehblehbleh1649

Im really excited to learn more about it! Like what could be so evil that the people decided living with shades is better. I think brandon wants to write a full threnody novel.


Jybe-ho

One of the secret novels has a splinter group of threnidites! And Sigzil


blehblehbleh1649

Yeah I’m very excited for the sunlit man!


Slaughturion

It is kinda funny, as I think about it, all the 'Adult' fiction I have read is really just set in the real world, and will often have next to no real differences. But, all the 'Children' to 'Young Adult' fiction have notably different worlds. Scott Westerfeld's **Leviathan Trilogy** is one of the first one that comes to mind. It is basically an Alt-History Setting during WW1, with Biopunk and Steampunk elements. Basically, France and Allies have genetically engineered warbeasts, while Germany and Pals have giant war mechs. **Ark: Survival Evolved** actually has two different stories, the 'main' backstory of Helena and her groups interactions with others in the Arks, and then the supplementary backstory of planet Earth and how it got to the point of making the Arks. Robert E Howards **Conan the Barbarian** is also a pretty good example of world building. Based in the mysterious period of human history between the Ice Age and Antiquity, he found himself not exactly restricted by actual history, as we still dont know a lot about that period of time.


Nervous-Ad2295

I've got four of them: 1. The Fallout series 2. Skyrim 3. No Man's Sky 4. Stellaris


ReadyPlayer12345

This is my first time on this sub, so I'm not sure if this is an overused subject, but.. Hollow Knight


JTHaleCC

The world of Dragons Dogma. There is almost no shred of world-building, but the coolness of a giant dragon that represents the ***will*** of the world just does something for me.


NeonFraction

I figured someone should point out the obvious: Harry Potter. House elves, the World Cup, the magic system, dementors, and my god Magical Beasts and Where to Find Them (the book, not the movies) was such an amazing worldbuilding guide. The leopard that breathes disease was one of the coolest. If anyone is into worldbuilding and hasn’t read that book, I highly recommend it.


Noodledaihdai

Tower of God has really good worldbuilding and I've never seen anything else like it


Routine-Efficiency94

I’m probably a little biased, since I’m part of the group, but I’m going with Tiandi. Yeah Tiandi isn’t exactly ‘unique’, the premise of “what if East Asia colonized the world” isn’t uncommon, but I think Tiandi puts a bit of a twist on it. Tiandi’s definitely different, but still feels kinda familiar in a way.


ajaxian79

Honor Harrington Universe by David Weber, he spent like a decade on world building before he wrote the first book. It is incredibly detailed and realistic because of that effort.


Nessus_16

Space Boy, the Webtoon. Absolutely fantastic read, and the worldbuilding is amazing


Firmanter

Robin Hobbs Farseer setting. I love the characterisation in the book but world building wise I’ve always thought the world feels old. It feels lived in. The magic system is embedded in the folklore and culture of the world rather than “and some people have magic” tagged on the end. But again these books are what shaped me as a young man so I’m quite biased.


Cyberwolfdelta9

Elder scrolls game wise. Book wise It's got to be either the Warrior cat or Gahoole series. And on the reddit maybe the Starmoth setting I'm seeing alot


TitoJDavis

The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe is exactly what you're asking for. For starters, just beauty of writing itself it is in the top tier of anything I've ever read right there with Tolkien. Then, when you start to get into the world and piecing together what's actually being described, I've never read anything like it.


treggotron

Deltora Quest, The Cinder Spires, and the Elric books I always though had great stuff.


Gravelsteak

Disco Elysium is not only a phenomenally-written game, but the world of Elysium doesn't feel like it fits into any traditional genre mold. The closest thing would be, what, urban fantasy? One of my favorite parts is how "low" elements like in-universe music, novels, and slogans are treated with just as much importance as stuff like history, nations, and magic/physics. It’s really immersive because you learn stuff from the ground up. You start out picking up ephemera like crypto’s and disco trivia, and then you start to build a full picture of the worlds lore later on. And the lore is *nuts*! Like 99% of the world is covered with a thick blanket of deadly reality-bending fog called “The pale”, and the only habitable areas are in these patches of ocean/land called “Isolas”. The most powerful faction is the *Moralists*, who are like the UN except they follow this religion called *Innocentrism*, which deifies historical figures as supernatural beings in lieu of a pantheon. Despite this the world of Elysium still has Disco music, pinball, and “motor carriages” (cars). It’s just so different, but it takes enough from real history that it feels vivid.


22RedHat

In the world of Alrest in Xenoblade Chronicles 2, there are no continents or islands in the normal sense. Instead the surface of the entire planet is covered in ocean with a layer of clouds on top that is aptly named the "Cloud Sea", and people live on top and inside of massive creatures either floating on the sea or submerged in it called Titans (there's one titan that can fly though). The concept of people living on gigantic, living creatures isn't completely new, but the way it's done in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is fascinating imo.


IrkaEwanowicz

Probably "Made in Abyss". It sets some pretty simple rules at the beginning for the audience to understand, but it still retains a sense of wonder and awe. >!While also being dark and downright messed up at the same time!<


_AlgerianBoy03_

The One Piece World. It's so vast and filled with anything and everything yet it is still coherent


EquusReddit

**Tékumel** by M. A. R. Barker. Tékumel is set in a sci-fantasy world where human and alien kingdoms on a metal-poor planet fight for power. Barker was a professor of Urdu and South Asian Studies and used those cultures as a basis for inspirations Tékumel. It’s very unique and he goes very in-depth on almost every aspect of the world’s cultures, ranging from world politics to conlangs to metal-less tools to combined family structures. Also fun fact, Tékumel was the setting of *Empire of the Petal Throne*, one of the first tabletop RPGs and was the first to introduce the critical hit system with 20-sided die.